I feel like it is a bit pretentious to assume that this has evaded the dev-team's mind, while working on combat, or more precisely armor, so if you already kept what I am going to talk about in mind for the mechanics of armor, please forgive me for assuming otherwise.
While it might be "unfun" to make metal armor, and especially plate armor realistically protective, I think making all types of armor, or combat styles equally effective is not the correct solution either ...
If someone fighting unarmored, with a knife is as dangerous as someone in a full suit of plate with a pollaxe, given that the players are equally skilled, is not desirable, especially since CoE doesn't claim to be fair in the first place. (hyperbole)
When talking about equipment it is usually brought up that in CoE will play a secondary role to player skill, but I am assuming this means that differences in quality won't be as important as they are in other games, but to hunt large game you'd still require a heavy bow, to fell a tree, you`d still need more than a hatchet, and to be considered properly equipped for combat you'd need ... yeah what exactly would you need?
This is another point where I am a bit anxious to see what you guys have planned. From the way it is talked about, it seems like the correct combat attire will vary greatly from biome to biome, with everything getting it's place to shine, while realistically in the overwhelming majority of situations plate, and in almost all situations metal armor is the uncontested best thing to wear.
CoE has the unique opportunity to balance this not by adjusting the properties of armor, but over the economic effort invested in metal armor when compared to other types of protection. Losing a suit of plate armor is probably just as "unfun", if not more so than fighting against someone in actually protective armor.
People on Discord regularly discuss how wars are going to be exceedingly expensive undertakings, but if it doesn't matter what equipment my soldiers use, I can just make an army of unarmored soldiers that are trained in some unarmed combat style. (hyperbole)
Well, I hope the points I was trying to make got across, I am really looking forward to what the combat system is going to be like, and I trust in your ability to find a good path between the two extremes, after all, as much as I would like there to be realistic armor, I am but one voice of many.